Marxists Internet Archive Publications

Manifesto of the Communist Party and its genesis

Karl Marx & Frederick Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party and its genesis, includes all the prefaces published during Marx & Engels' life times, "The Principles of Communism" "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany" and the "Third Address of the International Workingmen's Association, The Paris Commune," May 1871. 116 pp

Written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848, the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” is the founding document of Communism. Republished in countless editions in almost every language of the world, it has proved to be a timeless critique of modernity.

This Marxists Internet Archive edition includes all the prefaces published during Marx & Engels’ life times as well as the first draft of the Manifesto: “The Principles of Communism.” Also included is the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany,” an agitational document published at the same time as the Manifesto, which addresses the immediate demands of the workers movement in Germany in 1848, and makes an informative contrast with the Manifesto which addressed an international and historical movement.

These documents from 1847-8 are supplemented with the “Third Address of the International Workingmen’s Association, The Paris Commune,” delivered by Marx in May 1871, in the immediate aftermath of the crushing of the Commune. Here Marx made the only amendments to the views expressed in the Manifesto made necessary by the experience of the revolutionary working class itself.

This collection provides the reader with a first-hand account of the genesis of the founding ideas of communism, and allows the reader to see the relation between the development of the workers’ movement itself and the theories which give voice to that movement.

“The Manifesto of the Communist Party and its Genesis” is available only through Erythrůs Press and Media and all proceeds go towards the operations of the Marxists Internet Archive.